Moving Billboards: A Brief History of NASCAR Advertising"¨

When Bill France Sr. founded NASCAR in 1948, the sport's handful of sponsors were almost exclusively local businesses. Today, organizations and companies from Aaron's Inc. to Zaxby's pay millions of dollars a year to put their logos on the hoods of cars and trucks in NASCAR's top divisions. In honor of this weekend's Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400 at Michigan International Speedway, here's a closer look at the history of stock car racing's moving billboards.

Cigarette Companies Light the Fire

In late 1970, NASCAR great Junior Johnson asked the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company to sponsor his car for the upcoming season. Johnson, who Tom Wolfe once described as the "last American hero" in a piece for Esquire, had lost his auto parts-dealing sponsor in a plane crash, and, like most drivers at the time, faced financial uncertainty during the offseason. R.J. Reynolds, which was looking for creative ways to spend its enormous advertising budget after the federal government's ban on cigarette advertising on television took effect in 1971, had a better idea. Just as former sponsors Ford, Chevy, and Dodge withdrew from stock car racing, R.J. Reynolds stepped in and agreed to sponsor a $100,000 championship series to be known as the Winston Cup. The Winston Cup survived through 2003, after which it became the Nextel Cup (and later the Sprint Cup), while R.J. Reynolds' investment paved the way for other sponsors to enter the sport.

The Man Who Launched a Thousand Logos"¨

Andy Granatelli was a Texas-born racing junkie who made a name and a nickname—Mister 500—for himself in open-wheel racing. Granatelli would rise to prominence as the spokesman and CEO of STP, sponsoring cars in the Indianapolis 500 for more than three decades. After Mario Andretti became the first STP-sponsored driver to take the checkered flag in Indianapolis in 1969, Granatelli planted a huge kiss on him in Victory Lane. Granatelli first greeted stock car racing legend Richard Petty with a handshake 2 years later, but the duo's relationship would soon blossom. According to Ryan McGee's fascinating story for ESPN The Magazine last month, Granatelli offered Petty $250,000 for the upcoming season and a $50,000 bonus for winning the championship if he partnered with STP. Petty, whose father, Lee, created the signature blue hue that decorated his car, balked at the idea of painting his car red, but eventually agreed to a half-and-half paint scheme featuring an STP decal on the hood. "I'll never forget the reaction on people's faces in the garage," Dale Inman, Petty's crew chief and cousin, told McGee. "In that instant, the whole way that people thought about sponsorship in NASCAR changed."

Iconic Partnerships

"¨In addition to Petty and STP, there have been a number of other famous sponsor-driver pairings in NASCAR history. Harry Gant became known as "The Skoal Bandit" after his sponsor of more than 20 years. Dale Earnhardt won two of his first three Winston Cup Series titles in the yellow-and-blue Wrangler Jeans Machine. GM Goodwrench replaced Wrangler as the primary sponsor of Earnhardt's No. 3 car from the start of the 1988 season until Earnhardt's death at the 2001 Daytona 500. Jeff Gordon, "The Rainbow Warrior," has driven the DuPont car for his entire career, while many race fans will forever associate Tony Stewart with his former orange and black Home Depot car."¨

Location, Location, Location"¨

Primary sponsorships generally cost between $10 and $25 million a year. That generally includes a spot on the hood and a prominent presence on the driver's and his pit crew's uniforms. The cost of being a major associate sponsor, which might earn your company a spot on the trunk lid, is roughly $1 to $5 million per year. Parts of the car, including the area to the left of the number on the side door, are reserved for official NASCAR sponsors and may not be sold by the team. Prime locations in addition to the hood include the dashboard and headrest, thanks to the heavy use of in-car cameras. "¨

Roll Tide

"¨For years, beer, tobacco, and motor oil companies ruled the track. Procter & Gamble began to change that trend when it sponsored cars bearing the logos of Crisco, Tide, and Folgers in the mid-1980s. Other non-traditional NASCAR sponsors lined up for a piece of the pie after P&G's products enjoyed an increase in sales. In the two decades since, Cheerios, Hooters, The Cartoon Network, TaxSlayer.com, Wave Energy Drink, Spam, and L'eggs, among hundreds of other companies, have been major NASCAR sponsors.

It's becoming increasingly common for cars to feature several different paint schemes throughout the season, with sponsors unwilling to pay the cost for a full season. Sports Business Journal recently reported that only 10 Sprint Cup teams use the same paint scheme for the entire season. In recent years, cars have featured the logos of professional and college sports teams. Carl Edwards' No. 99 sported the Boston Red Sox logo on its hood after Fenway Sports Group bought half of Roush Racing in 2007. Aaron's Inc. unveiled a special paint scheme honoring Alabama's BCS Championship during a race at Talladega Superspeedway in April. "¨

Making a Religious Statement"¨

NASCAR's sanctioning body has the final say over what logos and images can appear on its cars. Occasionally, the paint schemes create controversy. In the week leading up to the 2004 Daytona 500, Interstate Batteries Chairman Norm Miller replaced his company's logo on the hood of Bobby Labonte's No. 18 car with an advertisement for Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of the Christ. "It's a chance to get the word out," Labonte told reporters. "Someone who is curious about Jesus and has never been saved sees the race and says, 'Hmmm, I'd like to see what that's about.' ... Maybe we can change their minds."

It wasn't the first time NASCAR was forced to make a religious ruling. In 2002, Morgan Shepherd put an image of Jesus on the hood of his truck. NASCAR officials asked him to remove it after receiving complaints, but changed their minds a few weeks later and told Shepherd the logo could stay."¨

Comparatively Cheap Exposure

"¨In 2006, Eric Wright of Joyce Julius Associates, a research firm dedicated to sponsorship impact measurement, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the average screen time for a race car's primary sponsor during a typical race is 12.5 minutes and the average number of times the announcers mention the sponsor is 2.6 times per race. The comparable value to the sponsor for the time on screen, according to Wright, is $1.7 million. A sponsor's exposure goes up if its driver takes the checkered flag or is involved in a wreck, especially if the wreck occurs in the later stages of the race and the company name is still visible when the car comes to a stop. "If you crash, crash fabulously, and make sure your logo is not wrinkled up,'" Dave Hart of Richard Childress Racing once told a reporter."¨

Drinking and Driving"¨

While the sport began its long-time partnership with beer companies when Miller High Life became a sponsor in 1972, NASCAR prohibited distilled spirits companies from sponsoring teams until 2004. The decision to repeal the self-imposed ban drew some criticism, but NASCAR President Mike Helton defended the call, in part, by arguing that NASCAR fans view distilled spirits as a part of everyday life. While several hard liquor brands became primary sponsors after the ban was lifted, Jim Beam and Jack Daniel's opted not to renew their contracts after the 2009 season.

"¨NASCAR Politickin'"¨

Given the sport's enormous popularity and the interest in appealing to the "NASCAR Dads" demographic, a race track would seem like a decent place for a presidential hopeful to campaign. NASCAR's BAM Racing Team made sponsorship proposals to Barack Obama and John McCain during the summer of 2008, but both candidates declined. The team's No. 49 car was a Toyota, the only foreign automaker that participates in the sport, and driver Ken Schrader was a documented Republican donor. A Sprint Cup Series car carried a George W. Bush logo in 2004, but was not officially affiliated with the Bush campaign, while Democratic presidential hopeful Bob Graham sponsored a truck in the Craftsman Truck Series in 2003.

In April, Texas Gov. Rick Perry paid $225,000 to have his name and campaign logo featured on the front, back, and both sides of Bobby Labonte's car at the Samsung Mobile 500 at the Texas Motor Speedway.

Now in its 47th season, Sesame Street is one of television's most iconic programs—and it's not just for kids. We're big fans of the Street, and to prove it, here are some of our favorite Sesame facts from previous stories and our Amazing Fact Generator.

Sesame Workshop

1. Oscar the Grouch used to be orange. Jim Henson decided to make him green before season two.

2. How did Oscar explain the color change? He said he went on vacation to the very damp Swamp Mushy Muddy and turned green overnight.

3. During a 2004 episode, Cookie Monster said that before he started eating cookies, his name was Sid.

4. In 1980, C-3PO and R2-D2 visited Sesame Street. They played games, sang songs, and R2-D2 fell in love with a fire hydrant.

5. Mr. Snuffleupagus has a first name—Aloysius

6. Ralph Nader stopped by in 1988 and sang "a consumer advocate is a person in your neighborhood."

7. Caroll Spinney said he based Oscar's voice on a cab driver from the Bronx who brought him to the audition.

15. In 2002, the South African version (Takalani Sesame) added an HIV-positive Muppet named Kami.

16. Six Republicans on the House Commerce Committee wrote a letter to PBS president Pat Mitchell warning that Kami was not appropriate for American children, and reminded Mitchell that their committee controlled PBS' funding.

17.Sesame Street's resident game show host Guy Smiley was using a pseudonym. His real name was Bernie Liederkrantz.

18. Bert and Ernie have been getting questioned about their sexuality for years. Ernie himself, as performed by Steve Whitmere, has weighed in: “All that stuff about me and Bert? It’s not true. We’re both very happy, but we’re not gay,”

19. A few years later, Bert (as performed by Eric Jacobson) answered the same question by saying, “No, no. In fact, sometimes we are not even friends; he can be a pain in the neck.”

20. In the first season, both Superman and Batman appeared in short cartoons produced by Filmation. In one clip, Batman told Bert and Ernie to stop arguing and take turns choosing what’s on TV.

21. In another segment, Superman battled a giant chimp.

22. Telly was originally "Television Monster," a TV-obsessed Muppet whose eyes whirled around as he watched.

23. According to Sesame Workshop, Elmo is the only non-human to testify before Congress.

24. He lobbied for more funding for music education, so that "when Elmo goes to school, there will be the instruments to play."

25. In the early 1990s, soon after Jim Henson’s passing, a rumor circulated that Ernie would be killed off in order to teach children about death, as they'd done with Mr. Hooper.

26. According to Snopes, the rumor may have spread thanks to New Hampshire college student, Michael Tabor, who convinced his graduating class to wear “Save Ernie” beanies and sign a petition to persuade Sesame Workshop to let Ernie live.

27. By the time Tabor was corrected, the newspapers had already picked up the story.

28.Sesame Street’s Executive Producer Carol-Lynn Parente joined Sesame Workshop as a production assistant and has worked her way to the top.

29. Originally, Count von Count was more sinister. He could hypnotize and stun people.

30. According to Sesame Workshop, all Sesame Street's main Muppets have four fingers except Cookie Monster, who has five.

31. The episode with Mr. Hooper's funeral aired on Thanksgiving Day in 1983. That date was chosen because families were more likely to be together at that time, in case kids had questions or needed emotional support.

37. Sesame's Roosevelt Franklin ran a school, where he spoke in scat and taught about Africa. Some parents hated him, so in 1975 he got the boot, only to inspire Gob Bluth’s racist puppet Franklin on Arrested Development 28 years later.

38. Our good friend and contributor Eddie Deezen was the voice of Donnie Dodo in the 1985 classic Follow That Bird.

39. Cookie Monster evolved from The Wheel-Stealer—a snack-pilfering puppet Jim Henson created to promote Wheels, Crowns and Flutes in the 1960s.

40. This puppet later was seen eating a computer in an IBM training film and on The Ed Sullivan Show.

More than 30 years ago, Apple defined the Super Bowl commercial as a cultural phenomenon. Prior to Super Bowl XVIII, nobody watched the game "just for the commercials"—but one epic TV spot, directed by sci-fi legend Ridley Scott, changed all that. Read on for the inside story of the commercial that rocked the world of advertising, even though Apple's Board of Directors didn't want to run it at all.

THE AD

If you haven't seen it, here's a fuzzy YouTube version:

"WHY 1984 WON'T BE LIKE 1984"

The tagline "Why 1984 Won't Be Like '1984'" references George Orwell's 1949 novel 1984, which envisioned a dystopian future, controlled by a televised "Big Brother." The tagline was written by Brent Thomas and Steve Hayden of the ad firm Chiat\Day in 1982, and the pair tried to sell it to various companies (including Apple, for the Apple II computer) but were turned down repeatedly. When Steve Jobs heard the pitch in 1983, he was sold—he saw the Macintosh as a "revolutionary" product, and wanted advertising to match. Jobs saw IBM as Big Brother, and wanted to position Apple as the world's last chance to escape IBM's domination of the personal computer industry. The Mac was scheduled to launch in late January of 1984, a week after the Super Bowl. IBM already held the nickname "Big Blue," so the parallels, at least to Jobs, were too delicious to miss.

Thomas and Hayden wrote up the story of the ad: we see a world of mind-controlled, shuffling men all in gray, staring at a video screen showing the face of Big Brother droning on about "information purification directives." A lone woman clad in vibrant red shorts and a white tank-top (bearing a Mac logo) runs from riot police, dashing up an aisle towards Big Brother. Just before being snatched by the police, she flings a sledgehammer at Big Brother's screen, smashing him just after he intones "We shall prevail!" Big Brother's destruction frees the minds of the throng, who quite literally see the light, flooding their faces now that the screen is gone. A mere eight seconds before the one-minute ad concludes, a narrator briefly mentions the word "Macintosh," in a restatement of that original tagline: "On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like '1984.'" An Apple logo is shown, and then we're out—back to the game.

"... It is now 1984. It appears IBM wants it all. Apple is perceived to be the only hope to offer IBM a run for its money. Dealers, initially welcoming IBM with open arms, now fear an IBM-dominated and -controlled future. They are increasingly turning back to Apple as the only force that can ensure their future freedom. IBM wants it all and is aiming its guns on its last obstacle to industry control: Apple. Will Big Blue dominate the entire computer industry? The entire information age? Was George Orwell right about 1984?"

After seeing the ad for the first time, the Apple audience totally freaked out (jump to about the 5-minute mark to witness the riotous cheering).

SKINHEADS, A DISCUS THROWER, AND A SCI-FI DIRECTOR

Chiat\Day hired Ridley Scott, whose 1982 sci-fi film Blade Runner had the dystopian tone they were looking for (and Alien wasn't so bad either). Scott filmed the ad in London, using actual skinheads playing the mute bald men—they were paid $125 a day to sit and stare at Big Brother; those who still had hair were paid to shave their heads for the shoot. Anya Major, a discus thrower and actress, was cast as the woman with the sledgehammer largely because she was actually capable of wielding the thing.

Mac programmer Andy Hertzfeld wrote an Apple II program "to flash impressive looking numbers and graphs on [Big Brother's] screen," but it's unclear whether his program was used for the final film. The ad cost a shocking $900,000 to film, plus Apple booked two premium slots during the Super Bowl to air it—carrying an airtime cost of more than $1 million.

WHAT EXECUTIVES AT APPLE THOUGHT

Although Jobs and his marketing team (plus the assembled throng at his 1983 internal presentation) loved the ad, Apple's Board of Directors hated it. After seeing the ad for the first time, board member Mike Markkula suggested that Chiat\Day be fired, and the remainder of the board were similarly unimpressed. Then-CEO John Sculley recalled the reaction after the ad was screened for the group: "The others just looked at each other, dazed expressions on their faces ... Most of them felt it was the worst commercial they had ever seen. Not a single outside board member liked it." Sculley instructed Chiat\Day to sell off the Super Bowl airtime they had purchased, but Chiat\Day principal Jay Chiat quietly resisted. Chiat had purchased two slots—a 60-second slot in the third quarter to show the full ad, plus a 30-second slot later on to repeat an edited-down version. Chiat sold only the 30-second slot and claimed it was too late to sell the longer one. By disobeying his client's instructions, Chiat cemented Apple's place in advertising history.

When Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak heard that the ad was in trouble, he offered to pony up half the airtime costs himself, saying, "I asked how much it was going to cost, and [Steve Jobs] told me $800,000. I said, 'Well, I'll pay half of it if you will.' I figured it was a problem with the company justifying the expenditure. I thought an ad that was so great a piece of science fiction should have its chance to be seen."

But Woz didn't have to shell out the money; the executive team finally decided to run a 100-day advertising extravaganza for the Mac's launch, starting with the Super Bowl ad—after all, they had already paid to shoot it and were stuck with the airtime.

WHAT EVERYBODY ELSE THOUGHT

When the ad aired, controversy erupted—viewers either loved or hated the ad, and it spurred a wave of media coverage that involved news shows replaying the ad as part of covering it, leading to estimates of an additional $5 million in "free" airtime for the ad. All three national networks, plus countless local markets, ran news stories about the ad. "1984" become a cultural event, and served as a blueprint for future Apple product launches. The marketing logic was brilliantly simple: create an ad campaign that sparked controversy (for example, by insinuating that IBM was like Big Brother), and the media will cover your launch for free, amplifying the message.

The full ad famously ran once during the Super Bowl XVIII (on January 22, 1984), but it also ran the month prior—on December 31, 1983, TV station operator Tom Frank ran the ad on KMVT at the last possible time slot before midnight, in order to qualify for 1983's advertising awards.* (Any awards the ad won would mean more media coverage.) Apple paid to screen the ad in movie theaters before movie trailers, further heightening anticipation for the Mac launch. In addition to all that, the 30-second version was aired across the country after its debut on the Super Bowl.

Chiat\Day adman Steve Hayden recalled: "We ran a 30- second version of '1984' in the top 10 U.S. markets, plus, in an admittedly childish move, in an 11th market—Boca Raton, Florida, headquarters for IBM's PC division." Mac team member Andy Hertzfeld ended his remembrance of the ad by saying:

"A week after the Macintosh launch, Apple held its January board meeting. The Macintosh executive staff was invited to attend, not knowing what to expect. When the Mac people entered the room, everyone on the board rose and gave them a standing ovation, acknowledging that they were wrong about the commercial and congratulating the team for pulling off a fantastic launch.

Chiat\Day wanted the commercial to qualify for upcoming advertising awards, so they ran it once at 1 AM at a small television station in Twin Falls, Idaho, KMVT, on December 15, 1983 [incorrect; see below for an update on this -ed]. And sure enough it won just about every possible award, including best commercial of the decade. Twenty years later it's considered one of the most memorable television commercials ever made."

THE AWFUL 1985 FOLLOW-UP

A year later, Apple again employed Chiat\Day to make a blockbuster ad for their Macintosh Office product line, which was basically a file server, networking gear, and a laser printer. Directed by Ridley Scott's brother Tony, the new ad was called "Lemmings," and featured blindfolded businesspeople whistling an out-of-tune version of Snow White's "Heigh-Ho" as they followed each other off a cliff (referencing the myth of lemming suicide).

Jobs and Sculley didn't like the ad, but Chiat\Day convinced them to run it, pointing out that the board hadn't liked the last ad either. But unlike the rousing, empowering message of the "1984" ad, "Lemmings" directly insulted business customers who had already bought IBM computers. It was also weirdly boring—when it was aired at the Super Bowl (with Jobs and Sculley in attendance), nobody really reacted. The ad was a flop, and Apple even proposed running a printed apology in TheWall Street Journal. Jay Chiat shot back, saying that if Apple apologized, Chiat would buy an ad on the next page, apologizing for the apology. It was a mess:

20-YEAR ANNIVERSARY

In 2004, the ad was updated for the launch of the iPod. The only change was that the woman with the hammer was now listening to an iPod, which remained clipped to her belt as she ran. You can watch that version too:

FURTHER READING

Check out Mac team member Andy Hertzfeld's excellent first-person account of the ad. A similar account (but with more from Jobs's point of view) can found in the Steve Jobs biography, and an even more in-depth account is in The Mac Bathroom Reader. The Mac Bathroom Reader is out of print; you can read an excerpt online, including QuickTime movies of the two versions of the ad, plus a behind-the-scenes video. Finally, you might enjoy this 2004 USA Today article about the ad, pointing out that ads for other computers (including Atari, Radio Shack, and IBM's new PCjr) also ran during that Super Bowl.

* = A Note on the Airing in 1983

Update: Thanks to Tom Frank for writing in to correct my earlier mis-statement about the first air date of this commercial. As you can see in his comment below, Hertzfeld's comments above (and the dates cited in other accounts I've seen) are incorrect. Stay tuned for an upcoming interview with Frank, in which we discuss what it was like running both "1984" and "Lemmings" before they were on the Super Bowl!